She doesn’t move any closer to me, but she does raise an eyebrow. “I thought you were good friends.”
“We are,” I agree. “It doesn’t mean I blindly agree with everything Daniel does. And it doesn’t mean I can’t admit he was wrong.”
She stares out of the window. Her hands are tightly clenched in her lap, a sure sign of stress, but she doesn’t respond to me. Fuck. I don’t want to lose her. Not like this. Not when there’s so much potential, so much promise. You ever go out on a date and you find you can’t stop yourself from smiling for hours after? That’s kind of how I feel around Bailey.
I want to kick Daniel in the nuts right now.
“Daniel shouldn’t have said what he did,” I say quietly. “But he does have his reasons. Will you listen?”
“I’m in a moving cab,” she replies. “I can’t stop you from talking.”
“He didn’t always used to be so circumspect,” I explain. I can’t help grinning as I remember some of the crazy shit we used to do when we were younger. “When his father died, the board almost voted to break up the company. Daniel’s mom had to swoop in and appoint him CEO. Three members of the board resigned in protest. The stock price dropped twenty percent. It was a disaster.”
“We all have jobs that we care about, Sebastian,” she snaps. “Don’t tell me that Daniel’s job is more important than mine because he’s a billionaire, or that he should receive some kind of special pass for being a dick because he’s loaded. That’s the kind of crap Trevor used to pull, and I’m absolutely not going to take it anymore.”
Red’s got a temper, though in this case, I don’t blame her. “I already told you that he was wrong,” I reply. “Daniel’s company is in the middle of some sensitive negotiations, and he needs to keep a low profile till this deal is done. And women he’s been out with have sold him out to the tabloids before. He’s cautious for a reason.”
She looks briefly sympathetic, before her expression turns blank. “You are in the public eye as well, probably more than Daniel,” she points out. “I didn’t see you tell me to keep things quiet.”
She practically snarls the last three words, and I have to fight to keep a grin from breaking out on my face. She’s not giving any quarter. “I’m a chef,” I reply. “If it’s revealed that I’m in a threesome, my company stock isn’t at risk of a free-fall. Board members aren’t going to ask me if I’m fit to run the company.”
“You know what the worst thing is?” She continues on her tirade, not listening to me. She sounds furious. “I’m an assistant professor at NYU, and I don’t have tenure. If the school decides tomorrow that they don’t approve of what I do in my personal life, I’m out of a job. I have far more at stake than Daniel. Unlike him, I don’t have a billion-dollar cushion to land on.”
“You know, you really are yelling at the wrong guy,” I say mildly. “I’m not concerned about the press - I’m completely in favor of fucking you. Heck, let’s do it right now.”
She giggles at that. At first, the laughter is reluctant, but soon, we are both laughing openly. When she sobers up, I lace my fingers in hers. “Give him time, Bailey. When his father died, everyone was dead-set against him running the company. He responded by putting his head down and out-working everyone. He’s finally learning to live again. He just needs to process this at his own pace.”
She doesn’t reply. I spend the rest of the cab ride wondering if she’s going to walk away, and hoping against all hope that she’ll give us another chance.
The last time Daniel and me were in a threesome, it had been an uncomplicated thing. All three of us had been interested in sex and nothing else, and the affair had remained casual. There had been no feelings or emotions on the line.
This time, everything isn’t going to be quite that simple.
17
Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Daniel:
I have a sleepless night, tossing and turning, unable to get the hurt expression on Bailey’s face out of my mind. When my phone rings on Saturday morning, I reach for it, fully prepared to hear Sebastian read me the riot act about last night.